A Christmas Memory

As good as everyone says! Beautiful-poignant-a Gem. It is so true that this should be shown again and again during Holiday time--so that the general public can treasure it's beautiful, heartfelt simplicity--its charm, its delight at life. Frank and Eleanor Perry had directed some other gems right around this time--"David and Lisa" and "Last Summer" very different--but with a way at looking so very close to the characters, going to the very core of their beings--examining their hurts, their yearnings. The fragile/strong Sook and the fragile/strong childhood Capote are joined at the hip--they are portrayed with loving detail by the great Geraldine Page and a youngster named Donnie Melvin. This almost seems to anticipate "Harold and Maude" where there are equal amounts of knowing laughter, profound statements said off the cuff by Sook and Maude, which resonate so deeply, tenderness, and heartbreaking sadness as life and inevitability, the march of time and the inexorable presence of death announcing that "all good things must come to an end". But in dreams and memories, those good things live on--and this long-forgotten masterpiece deserves to be one of those. The music score is by Meyer Kupferman, who I actually had the great pleasure of knowing. He was a great bear of a man, a respected contemporary composer, clarinetist and teacher. I only found out that he wrote the beautiful, colorful film score while recently watching a DVD I purchased from Amazon. (Expensive--probably because it is so rare--but worth its weight in gold). Now I so wish I had known that he was the composer of this lovely, touching film score--I wish I could have talked to Mr. Kupferman about his experience writing this gorgeous score! But instead, like this fragile film of a brief, treasured Christmas Memory, it will remain an elusive dream. The people die, life moves on--but the art, the magic, the memory lives on.